With the development of organizations and their expansion, and connection to free business global market, the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will appear in space of global competition day to day. Now, these organizations must increase the power of self competition with appropriate visions to gain the ability of competition in the world competitive markets. This research studies the impact of both domestic partner relationships and environmental uncertainty on Iran SMEs’ localization strategy and assesses whether this strategy influences the performance of firms. Results showed that environmental stability and domestic network partnerships influence the degree of localization positively and this in turn influences the firm’s internationalization performance. The research findings can help SMEs’ managers, in that the effective use of localization strategies and also can help them to gain competitive advantage and achieve superior performance.

Proposal of a model for effective management and development of virtual teams

Petr Skyrik

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to present a pilot proposal of a model of “Virtual Development Management System” (ViDeMaS) which will facilitate more effective management and development of virtual teams. Management and development of virtual teams is not a simple concept. It comprises a body of knowledge from a number of fields and scientific disciplines. The complexity of the koncept may not be simplified as it is absolutely essential for full understanding of its nature. In order to gain better orientation in the concept, different perspectives will be used in the description of the model, which will enable us to achieve the goal of the work and to present the main results of the work (creation of a model for Virtual Development Management System). The present paper thus describes from different perspectives the proposal of a sufficiently detailed and complex model that may be utilized both on theoretical and application level.

Sunday, 29 April 2012

Many of the examples and case studies we are seeing today around emergent collaboration involve companies with thousands of employees around the world. But, this doesn’t mean emergent collaboration tools and strategies are only for the enterprise. In fact, nothing could be father from the truth. Collaboration can benefit any company of any size. Chess Media Group is much smaller than many of the companies we work with and write about yet we use many of the same tools that larger companies do. FSG – Social Impact Consultants was a company that we profiled recently in our case study series and they only have around 80 employees; far from the thousands of employees that a Dell, IBM, or Boeing has.
Let’s think about this. Even if your company has 5 people isn’t it sill important that you can all easily access information when you need it from any device? Don’t you still have to develop documents which need to be shared and collaborated on with your team or perhaps clients or consultants that are helping you on a project? Don’t you still want your team members to be engaged with the company and the work they do (meaning they love their job)? Isn’t managing your projects and tasks still important and don’t you want to do it in a way that your team has insights into what everyone else is doing?
While some of the applications within the enterprise might be different (for example the ability to find subject matter experts) the benefits are just as strong for small companies as they are for large companies. Building a collaborative organization supported by emergent tools and technologies is not limited by the size of an organization. In fact many vendors that offer these tools have packages that also cater to smaller organizations as well.
Don’t let all the case studies and discussions around enterprise collaboration fool you into thinking that it can’t benefit a small business, it can.

Friday, 27 April 2012

Development of interorganizational trust in virtual organizations: An integrative framework

Document Information:

Title:

Development of interorganizational trust in virtual organizations: An integrative framework

Author(s):

Debmalya Mukherjee, (College of Business Administration, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA), Robert W. Renn, (Fogelman College of Business and Economics, The University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA), Ben L. Kedia, (Robert Wang Center for International Business Education and Research, The University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA), Deepraj Mukherjee, (Department of Business, Waldorf College, Forest City, Iowa, USA)

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the Southern Management Association (SMA), 2005 annual meeting, Charleston, USA. The authors would like to thank Editor Dr Goran Svensson, the anonymous reviewers, and Dr Somnath Lahiri, and Amrapali Gupta for their immensely insightful comments and guidance.

Abstract:

Purpose – A virtual organization (VO) is a set of geographically dispersed and functionally diverse organizational entities interconnected by electronic forms of communication that cooperate with one another for a common valued outcome. The objective of this article is to propose a research framework that illustrates the development of trust between VOs. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an overview of literature on VOs, identifies antecedents of trustworthiness in virtual environment, explores the role of boundary spanners' interpersonal trust, and relates them to inter-VO trust formation. A research analysis is developed that depicts the proposed relationships. Findings – The propositions shed light on the overall interorganizational trust building process in VOs. In doing so, the framework also acknowledges the role of individual boundary spanners of a trustor organization in the trust development process. Originality/value – Systematic scholarly research relating to VOs has been somewhat limited. With the emergence of VOs as important organizational forms, there is an increasing need to comprehend how interorganizational trust is developed and maintained in VOs. This study attempts to fill this gap in the extant literature by exploring how social exchange factors in a virtual context relate to factors of organizational trustworthiness of the trustee organization. In addition, this paper also investigates the key role played by the boundary spanners of both organizations in the trust formation process.

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About Me

Nader Ale Ebrahim has
a Technology Management PhD degree from the Department of Engineering
Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya
(UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds a Master of Science in the
mechanical engineering from University of Tehran, Iran.